User generated content within an online education platform

ABSTRACT

According to an implementation, a system includes an online education platform including a content manager configured to provide an authoring tool on a computing device associated with a learner of an online course. The authoring tool is configured to provide at least one user interface for creation of a learner-created question for an assessment for the online course. The content manager includes an education content converter configured to convert the learner-created question from a first format to a second format. The online education platform including an assessment bank configured to store the learner-created question, as well as other learner-created questions and instructor-created questions. The online education platform including a content selector configured to select a plurality of questions from the assessment bank for the assessment for the online course.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a non-provisional of, and claims priority to, U.S.Patent Application No. 62/436,637, filed on Dec. 20, 2016, entitled“USER GENERATED CONTENT WITHIN AN ONLINE EDUCATION PLATFORM,” which isincorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

An online education platform provides a system that delivers onlinecourses to learners through network-connected devices. For example,learners may use computing device to view and interact with coursematerials provided by the online education platform. In some examples,the online education platform may grade an assessment taken by thelearners via their devices, and then, based on the results, theinstructor may want to modify or change questions and/or answers to makethe assessment better. In addition, the learners themselves may havesuggestions, proposed changes, and/or sample assessment questions that,if incorporated, could enhance the online course. However, conventionalonline education platforms are relatively rigid, uniform, and standard,which can make it difficult incorporating changes to the course contentprovided by the online education platform. For example, the technicalknowledge to implement certain changes is often beyond the technicalexpertise of the learners and/or instructors.

SUMMARY

According to an implementation, a system includes an online educationplatform configured to provide an online course over a network to aplurality of computing devices, where the online course provideseducation content in which learners view and interact with the educationcontent. The online education platform includes a content managerconfigured to provide an authoring tool on a computing device associatedwith a learner of the online course. The authoring tool is configured toadd material to the education content. The authoring tool is configuredto provide at least one user interface for creation of a learner-createdquestion for an assessment for the online course. The content managerincludes an education content converter configured to receive thelearner-created question in a first format and convert the first formatto a second format compatible to the online education platform. Theonline education platform including an assessment bank configured tostore the learner-created question. The assessment bank includeslearner-created questions and instructor-created questions. The onlineeducation platform including a content selector configured to select aplurality of questions from the assessment bank for the assessment forthe online course.

According to some implementations, the system may include the followingone or more features (or any combination thereof). The learner-createdquestion may be stored in a one-question format. The content selectormay be configured to sort the learner-created questions and theinstructor-created questions in the assessment back according toquality, and select the plurality of questions based on the sorted list.The at least one user interface provided by the authoring tool mayidentify at least one text box for describing the learner-createdquestion and one or more text boxes for providing one or more answers tothe learner-created question. The first format may be a hypertext markuplanguage (HTML) format. The second format may be an education markuplanguage (EML) format. The EML format may define a plurality of blocksusing extensible markup language (XML), where each of the plurality ofblocks corresponds to a different type of data content. The XML maydefine each block of the plurality of blocks with restricted attributesthat limits a block to a particular type of data content.

According to an implementation, a non-transitory computer-readablemedium storing executable instructions that when executed by at leastone processor are configured to implement an online education platform.The online education platform is configured to provide an online courseover a network to a plurality of computing devices. The online courseprovides education content in which learners view and interact with theeducation content. The online education platform is configured toprovide an authoring tool on a computing device associated with anlearner of the online course. The authoring tool is configured to addmaterial to the education content. The authoring tool is configured toprovide at least one user interface for creation of a learner-createdquestion for an assessment for the online course. The online educationplatform is configured to convert the learner-created question from afirst format to a second format compatible to the online educationplatform, store the learner-created question in an assessment bank,where the assessment bank includes learner-created questions andinstructor-created questions, and select a plurality of questions fromthe assessment bank for the assessment for the online course.

According to some implementations, the online education platform mayinclude the following one or more features (or any combination thereof).The learner-created question may be stored in a one-question format. Theonline education platform may sort the learner-created questions and theinstructor-created questions in the assessment back according toquality, and select the plurality of questions based on the sorted list.The at least one user interface provided by the authoring tool mayidentify at least one text box for describing the learner-createdquestion and one or more text boxes for providing one or more answers tothe learner-created question. The online education platform may providean authoring tool on a computing device associated with an instructor ofthe online course, where the authoring tool provides at least one userinterface for development of an instructor-related question, convert theinstructor-related question from the first format to the second formatcompatible to the online education platform, and store theinstructor-related question in the assessment bank. The first format maybe a hypertext markup language (HTML) format, and the second format maybe an education markup language (EML) format. The EML format may definea plurality of blocks using extensible markup language (XML), where eachof the plurality of blocks corresponds to a different type of datacontent. The XML may define each block of the plurality of blocks withrestricted attributes that limits a block to a particular type of datacontent.

According to an implementation, a method for implementing an onlineeducation platform that provides an online course over a network to aplurality of computing devices in which learners view and interact witheducation content of the online course includes providing an authoringtool on a computing device associated with an learner of the onlinecourse, where the authoring tool can add material to the educationcontent and provide at least one user interface for creation of alearner-created question for an assessment for the online course,converting the learner-created question from a first format to a secondformat compatible to the online education platform, storing thelearner-created question in an assessment bank, where the assessmentbank includes learner-created questions and instructor-createdquestions, and selecting a plurality of questions from the assessmentbank for the assessment for the online course.

According to some implementations, the method may include the followingone or more features (or any combination thereof). The learner-createdquestion may be stored in a one-question format. The method may furtherincluding sorting the learner-created questions and theinstructor-created questions in the assessment back according toquality, and selecting the plurality of questions based on the sortedlist.

The details of one or more implementations are set forth in theaccompanying drawings and the description below. Other features will beapparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system configured to support anonline education platform that includes an assessment bank havinglearner-created content and instructor-created content according to animplementation.

FIG. 2 illustrates education content that is operable across multipleimplementations of a learner application of the system of FIG. 1according to an implementation.

FIG. 3A illustrates a screenshot of an assessment question on thelearner application according to an implementation.

FIG. 3B illustrates a screenshot of an assessment question on thelearner application according to another implementation.

FIG. 3C illustrates a screenshot of performance results of an onlinecourse according to an implementation.

FIG. 3D illustrates a screenshot of performance results of an onlinecourse according to another implementation.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart depicting example operations of thesystem of FIG. 1 according to another implementation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The embodiments provide an online education platform that creates andupdates an assessment bank having both learner-created content andinstructor-created content relating to an online course. For example, aninstructor using an instructor application can create questions thatquiz the learners about the various subjects of the online course, andthese questions can be converted into a format that is compatible withthe format of the online education platform, and stored within theassessment bank. Also, after consuming the education content of theonline course via a learner application, a learner may use the learnerapplication to create their own training/assessment questions (subjectto the instructor's approval), and these questions can be converted intothe format of the online education platform. These learner-createdquestions may be combined with the instructor-created questions withinthe assessment bank. From this pool of questions, the online educationplatform may select different combinations of questions from theassessment bank to be presented to the learners to practice thematerial. Then, based on the performance data and/or survey results, theonline education platform may determine that some of the questions arebetter than others. As learners provide more or more learner-createdquestions, the quality of the content within the assessment bank mayincrease over time. In some examples, the learners can also be promptedto practice these questions (selected from the pool of questions) ifthey are struggling in the course. Also, the questions from the pool ofquestions may be intelligently selected to tie to specific skills thatthe learners can gain as they answer more questions correctly.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system 100 configured to support anonline education platform 102 according to an implementation. The system100 includes a computing device 101 configured to host the onlineeducation platform 102. The online education platform 102 may beconfigured to provide, over a network, online courses 104 to learners(students) via their computing devices 174. Referring to FIG. 1, thecomputing device 174 refers to a device used by a learner of an onlinecourse 104, and the learner uses his/her computing device 174 to connectto the online education platform 102 and receive education content 136corresponding to the online course 104 from the online educationplatform 102. For instance, the online course 104 may specify theeducation content 136 that is delivered over the network to a learnerapplication 176 of the computing device 174 in which a learner can viewand interact with the education content 136.

The education content 136 may include a variety of information such as alecture 180, an assessment 182 (e.g., quiz, test, assignment, etc.),education data 184 (e.g., text, audio, images, tables, math expressions,graphs, etc. for learning), and a survey 188. The lecture 180 mayinclude one or more video and/or audio clips that correspond to aparticular online course 104 (or a portion, module, or segment thereof).The online course 104 may specify a number of various lectures 180 thatare viewed by the learners at different points in the timeline of theonline course 104. The lecture 180 may define one or more user controlsthat allow the learner to control the lecture 180 and provide feedbackto the online education platform 102. The assessment 182 may include oneor more interactive questions to be answered by the learner via his/hercomputing device 174. In some examples, the assessment 182 may include aseries of questions that are presented one question at a time. Forexample, the learner application 176 may provide a user interface thatdepicts only one question, and the learner submit his/her answer beforemoving on to the next question in the series of questions. In thismanner, the learner can practice the material of the online course 104.Also, the online education platform 102 can store the grade for eachattempt of a question, and can tie a question to a skill or module inthe online course 104. The education data 184 may include any type ofvisual information that is presented to the learner as part of theonline course 104. For instance, the education data 184 may include oneor more images, captions to the lecture, graphs, text, audio, or anyother type of data that is presented to the learners, as well asinteractive controls that permits the learners to comment and providefeedback regarding the education content 136. The survey 188 may includeone or more survey questions that elicit feedback about the onlinecourse 104 from the learners. For example, the survey 188 may ask thelearner to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 various topics relating to theonline course 104. The survey 188 may be presented towards the end ofthe course, or may survey the learners at other parts of the onlinecourse 104 such as after completing an assessment 182 orwatching/listening to a lecture 180.

The online education platform 102 may partner with universities,schools, and/or organizations to provide the online courses 104. In someexamples, the online education platform 102 may provide hundreds orthousands of online courses 104 across many different types ofuniversities, schools, or organizations, and each online course 104 mayhave hundreds of learners (e.g., hundreds of computing devices 174connecting to a particular online course 104 via the online educationplatform 102). The online courses 104 may enable learners to watch shortlectures, take interactive quizzes and peer-graded assessments, andconnect with other learners and instructors. The online courses 104 mayinclude session-based online courses and on-demand courses. Thesession-based online courses may be associated with a course schedule,and have specific start and end dates. Tests, if any, are takenaccording to the course schedule. The on-demand courses are courses inwhich learners take on their own time, and guided by instructors to meetindividual needs.

The online education platform 102 allows many learners to take a singleonline course 104, and, as a result, provides a level of statisticaldata that was not possible with conventional courses or with onlineeducation platforms having a smaller capacity. For instance, in atypically class, the number of learners may be around 30. However, withrespect to a particular online course 104 provided by the onlineeducation platform 102, the number of learners may be over one hundredlearners. In other examples, the number of learners for a single onlinecourse 104 may be over 300. As such, the large number of learners for aparticular class permits the online education platform 102 to makecertain types of classifications and analysis that was not possible withconventional courses or smaller online platforms, as further explainedbelow.

The online education platform 102 may include an online course analyzer110 configured to provide, over the network, performance data 112 and/orsurvey results 114. The online course analyzer 110 may provide theperformance data 112 and/or the survey results 114 to the instructorsand/or learners. In one example, while the learner is practicing theeducation content 136, the online course analyzer 110 may provide theresults of the assessment 182 (e.g., which questions the learner gotright/wrong, the percentage of right/wrong answers) according to acertain time period (e.g., by week) or by learning objectives.

In some examples, the online course analyzer 110 may provide theperformance data 112 and/or survey results 114 via an instructordashboard 154 of an instructor application 152 of a computing device150. The instructor dashboard 154 may display performance data 112regarding the learner's interaction and/or performance with theeducation content 136, as well as any survey results 114. For instance,the instructor dashboard 154 may provide the instructor with the mostrelevant and interesting data regarding the online class's performanceso that the instructor can make determinations on how well the learnersare understanding the education content 136, and determine whetherhis/her online course 104 could benefit from any adjustments. The onlinecourse analyzer 110 may be configured to analyze the learners'performance and feedback with respect to the education content 136, andprovide statistical analysis on multiple different levels such asanalyzing the quality of an assessment 182, comparing different versionsof assessments 182, evaluating parts of the online course 104 havinglow/high engagements, analyzing overall performance of the learners,and/or marking characterizations about different groups of people, etc.In some examples, the instructor dashboard 154 may be a user interface(or series of user interfaces) that render the performance data 112 andthe survey results 114.

The computing device 150 refers to a device used by an instructor of anonline course 104, and the instructor uses his/her computing device 150to connect to the online education platform 102 to view the learners'performance and engagement via the instructor dashboard 154 and can makeadjustments to the education content 136 via an authoring tool 170 thatinteracts with a content manager 134 which makes any instructor editscompatible with a format of the online education platform 102 such thatthe re-published education content 136 (reflecting the changed material)can be rendered across any implementation of the learner application 176(e.g., native mobile, web, mobile web).

The instructor may develop or modify the assessment 182 by adding,deleting, or changing the content for the questions and answers of theassessment 182 using the authoring tool 170. In some examples, theinstructor may see that a low percentage of learners correctly answer aquestion from the assessment 182. Then, while viewing this performancedata 112, the instructor may start a process of altering the educationcontent 136 (e.g., adding a new question, or rewording an existingquestion from the assessment 182). In some examples, the authoring tool170 may be integrated into the instructor dashboard 154 in a manner thatallows the instructor to start an edit of an assessment 182 or changeother parts of the education content 136 while viewing the performancedata 112 (or other types of feedback) provided via the instructordashboard 154. In other words, the instructor may not need to log into aseparate system or navigate a different part of the online educationplatform 102. Rather, the instructor may activate a link, tab, control,button, etc. on the same user interface that provides the performancedata 112 and/or the survey results 114, and this activation causes theonline education platform 102 to provide a user interface (or series ofuser interfaces) that a part of the authoring tool 170, which allows theinstructor to change (add, delete, or modify) various parts of theeducation content 136 including any quiz material.

The learner application 176 also defines an authoring tool 190 thatpermits a learner to add material to the education content 136. Theauthoring tool 190 may operate in a similar manner as the authoring tool190.

The online education platform 102 may create and update an assessmentbank 132 having both learner-created content 136-1 andinstructor-created content 136-2 relating to an online course 104. Insome examples, the learner-created content 136-1 may include one or moreassessment or training questions that are created by the learnersthemselves. In some examples, the instructor-created content 136-2 mayinclude one or more assessment or training questions that are created bythe instructors. For example, an instructor using the authoring tool 170can create questions that quiz the learners about the various subjectsof the online course 104, and these questions can be converted into aformat that is compatible with the format of the online educationplatform 102. Also, after consuming the education content 136 of theonline course 104 via the learner application 176, a learner may use theauthoring tool 190 to create their own training/assessment questions(subject to the instructor's approval), and these questions can beconverted into the format of the online education platform 102. Theselearner-created questions may be combined with the instructor-createdquestions within the assessment bank 132. In some examples, each of theinstructor-created questions and the learner-created questions arestored in a one-question format such that any of the questions can beselected and combined together to form an assessment 182.

From this pool of questions, a content selector 120 of the onlineeducation platform 102 may select different combinations of questionsfrom the assessment bank 132 to be presented to the learners to practicethe material. In some examples, the content selector 120 may randomlyselect a subset of questions to be included part of an assessment 182related to a particular subject matter that the learner is currentlylearning. Then, based on the performance data 112 and/or survey results114, the online education platform 102 may determine that some of thequestions are better than others. As learners provide more or morelearner-created questions, the quality of the content within theassessment bank 132 may increase over time. In some examples, the onlineeducation platform 102 may receive feedback from learners who have takenthe assessment 182. For example, a learner might provide feedback that aparticular question was not teaching a specific skill or that thequestion was not helpful. This feedback may be used to identify badquestions. As the online education platform 102 receives feedback frommore and more learners, the content selector 120 may sort the questionsfrom the assessment bank 132 by quality. Having a larger assessment bank132 may also indicate more practice, which can be a better experiencefor learners to master their skills.

FIGS. 3A-3D illustrate various screenshots of an assessment 182 taken bylearners, which presents questions selected from the assessment bank132. FIG. 3A illustrates a screenshot 300 of an assessment question onthe learner application 176 according to an implementation. For example,the learner can practice the course material by answering a series ofquestions (e.g., questions 1-10), and the user interface presents onequestion at a time for the learner. FIG. 3B illustrates a screenshot 305of an assessment question on the learner application 176 according toanother implementation. On FIG. 3B, the leaner provided a selection tothe third question, which the online education platform 102 providesimmediate feedback so that the learner can further learn the material asthey complete each assessment question. FIG. 3C illustrates a screenshot310 of performance data 112 of an online course 104 according to animplementation, and FIG. 3D illustrates a screenshot 315 of performancedata 112 of an online course 104 according to another implementation.For example, the online course analyzer 110 may compute the performancedata 112 for the assessment 182, and can provide this information backto the learner so that the learner can see how well he/she understandsthe course material.

Referring back to FIG. 1, the content manager 134 may interface with theauthoring tool 170/190 to edit or develop the education content 136. Theauthoring tool 170/190 may define a user interface (or series of userinterfaces) that allows the instructors/learners to edit the educationcontent 136 including adding questions to the assessment bank 132 forthe training exercises (like shown in FIGS. 3A-3D). In some examples,the user interface of the authoring tool 170/190 may identify one ormore text boxes for describing the question and one or more text boxesfor providing possible answers (e.g., multiple choice questions). Thelearner/instructor may create or edit a question by typing text with orwithout a limited set of stylized features (e.g., underlying, bolding,strike-through, etc.), and inserting and/or defining math expressions,headers, images, videos, audio files, tables, lists, hyperlinks, and/orcode blocks. In some examples, the text boxes of the user interface ofthe authorizing tool 170/190 may provide a tool bar that lists aplurality of tools such as inserting tables, inserting math expressions,inserting a header, underline, strike-through, and/or bold, etc.

The content manager 134 may receive the learner-created content 136-1and/or the instructor-created content 136-2 in a first format 138. Thefirst format 138 may be a textual format specifying text (letters,numbers, and/or symbols without or within stylized features), mathexpressions, images, videos, audio files, tables, lists, hyperlinks,and/or code blocks or HTML. In some examples, the first format 138 isthe HTML format.

The content manager 134 may include an education content converter 140configured to convert the content 136-1 or 136-2 having the first format138 to content 136-1 or 136-2 having a second format 142. In someexamples, the second format 142 is considered a special education markuplanguage that can operate with the end client to render educationcontent (especially quizzes) with relatively good quality. For instance,on some platforms (e.g., mobile web), standard HTML tags do not renderwell when rendering special types of data such as the assessments 182.However, the content 136-1 or 136-2 with the second format 142 isrendered with good design quality and uniform look and feel regardlessof the type of end client or platform (e.g., across mobile web, nativemobile application, or standard HTML web). Because the content manager134 converts from the first format 138 to the second format 142, theinstructor/learner is unburdened with having to know the layout (orpresentation details) of a particular platform (rather the layout ishandled by the end client), and, therefore, the instructor/learner canfocus on the meaning of the content. For instance, theinstructor/learner can create assessment questions for storage in theassessment bank 132 using the text editor without having to know thedetails of HTML or whether certain data can cause security concerns.Also, the use of the second format 142 improves the functioning of theonline education platform 102 itself because it improves the functioningand/or speed of populating changes within the online education platform102. Furthermore, it lessens the security concerns associated withhaving many instructors/learners insert content into the onlineeducation platform 102 by restricting the types of content that can bemanipulated by the instructors/learners.

In some examples, the second format 142 is a restricted XML format. Forexample, the restricted XML format may define the types of contentpermitted on the online education platform 102. In some examples, therestricted XML format may define a number of content types less thanwhat is traditionally provided with XML or HTML. In other examples, thesecond format 142 is a restricted HTML format. In some examples, therestricted HTML format may define a number of HTML tags that are lessthan what is traditionally provided by HTML. In some examples, therestricted XML or HTML format is defined in terms of blocks, where eachblock relates to a different type of content (e.g., text block, tableblock, audio block, list block, etc.). Also, each block is associatedwith a limited set of attributes. Stated another way, the XML or HTMLtags are defined with a limited set of attributes. In one example, thetext block may specify text in terms of letters, numbers, and systems,and may include math expressions with a limited set of stylized featuressuch as underlined, strikethrough, bold, etc. However, with respect tothe text block, other features may be excluded such as doublestrikethrough.

The content manager 134 may include a validator 144 configured tovalidate that the content 136-1 or 136-2 is suitable for conversion bythe education content converter 140. In some examples, the validator 144may perform a formality check on the content 136-1 or 136-2 such thatthe content 136-1 or 136-2 has the appropriate language to be converted.For instance, the authoring tool 170/190 may specify the insertion of amath expression using certain attributes, and, if the wrong attributesare used, the validator 144 may notify the instructor/leaner to use thecorrect the attributes. After the content 136-1 or 136-2 is validatedand converted, the updated education content 136 may be stored in theassessment bank 132.

The learner application 176 may be configured to communicate with theonline education platform 102 over the network, and render and interactwith the education content 136 provided by the online course 104. Thelearner application 176 may be a native application (including nativemobile) or a browser-based application (mobile browser, or non-mobilebrowser) executing on an operating system of the computing device 174.The browser-based application may be referred to as mobile web or web.The learner application 176 may provide the education content 136 via aninterface allows a learner to interact with the online educationplatform 102. The computing device 174 may be a mobile computing device(e.g., a smart phone, a PDA, a tablet, or a laptop computer) or anon-mobile computing device (e.g., a desktop computing device). Thecomputing device 174 also includes various network interface circuitry,such as for example, a mobile network interface through which thecomputing device 174 can communicate with a cellular network, a Wi-Finetwork interface with which the computing device 174 can communicatewith a Wi-Fi base station, a Bluetooth network interface with which thecomputing device 174 can communicate with other Bluetooth devices,and/or an Ethernet connection or other wired connection that enables thecomputing device 174 to access the network.

The instructor application 152 may be configured to communicate with theonline education platform 102 over the network. In some examples, theinstructor application 152 is different than the learner application176. In other examples, the instructor application 152 is the same orsubstantially the same as the learner application 176 except that theinstructor application 152 includes additional functionality associatedwith instructors (e.g., providing an instructor dashboard 154 integratedwith the authoring tool 170). For instance, a user may log into theonline education platform 102, and if the user has been identified as aninstructor, the online education platform 102 may provide thefunctionalities described with respect to the computing device 150. Onthe other hand, if the user has been identified as a learner, the onlineeducation platform 102 may provide the functionalities described withrespect to the computing device 174. The instructor application 152 mayrender the instructor dashboard 154 and the integrated authoring tool170. The instructor application 152 may be a native application or abrowser-based application executing on an operating system of thecomputing device 150.

The computing device 150 may be a mobile computing device (e.g., a smartphone, a PDA, a tablet, or a laptop computer) or a non-mobile computingdevice (e.g., a desktop computing device). The computing device 150 alsoincludes various network interface circuitry, such as for example, amobile network interface through which the computing device 150 cancommunicate with a cellular network, a Wi-Fi network interface withwhich the computing device 150 can communicate with a Wi-Fi basestation, a Bluetooth network interface with which the computing device150 can communicate with other Bluetooth devices, and/or an Ethernetconnection or other wired connection that enables the computing device150 to access the network.

In some examples, the online education platform 102 may be considered acloud-based online education service such that all or most of its mainfunctionalities are executed on the computing device 101. For instance,the computing device 174 or the computing device 150 may access theonline education platform 102 via the network through the use of anytype of network connections and/or application programming interfaces(APIs) in a manner that permits the online education platform 102, thelearner application 176, and the instructor application 152 tocommunicate with each other. In this regard, the term “cloud” or“cloud-aware” references the use of “cloud computing,” which, generallyspeaking, includes a style of computing in which computing resourcessuch as application programs and file storage are remotely provided overthe network such as the Internet, typically through a web browser. Forexample, many web browsers are capable of running applications (e.g.,Java applets), which can themselves be application programminginterfaces (“API's”) to more sophisticated applications running onremote servers. In the cloud computing paradigm, a web browserinterfaces with and controls an application program that is running on aremote server. Through the browser, the user can create, edit, save anddelete files on the remote server via the remote application program.Thus, it may be observed that the computing device 101 may alsorepresent an example of cloud computing. In other examples, a portion ofthe features of the online education platform 102 may be incorporatedinto the learner application 176 or the instructor application 152executing locally on the computing device 174 or the computing device150.

In some examples, the computing device 101 may include one or moreservers. In some examples, the computing device 101 may include one ormore processors (e.g., a processor coupled to a substrate), and anon-transitory computer-readable medium including executableinstructions that when executed by the one or more processors areconfigured to implement the functionalities of the online educationplatform 102.

FIG. 2 illustrates the education content 136 that is operable acrossmultiple platforms of the learner application 176 according to animplementation. In some examples, the second format 142 is an educationmarkup language (EML) format 242. The education content 136 having theEML format 242 is capable of being rendered across the learnerapplication 176 implemented as a mobile web 203, a web 205, or nativemobile 207. The mobile web 203 refers to access to the online educationplatform 102 through the use of a browser on a mobile phone (e.g.,mobile browser) that display the education content 136 as a webpage. Theweb 205 refers to access to the online education platform 102 throughthe use of a non-mobile browser that displays the education content 136as a webpage. The native mobile 207 may refer to a native applicationinstalled on a mobile. Typically, the education content 136 created bythe instructors is either plain text or HTML (e.g., the educationcontent 136 in the first format 138). However, the HTML tags for theassessments 182 do not render well (or properly) on the mobile web 203.For instance, with respect to certain types of data like the assessments182 and other types of education data 184, presentation quality may beless than optimal on certain types of clients (e.g., mobile web 203) ifthere were no such conversion to the EML format 242. Therefore,according to the embodiments, the education content converter 140converts the education content 136 having the first format 138 (e.g.,the HTML) to education content 136 having the EML format 242.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart 400 depicting example operations of thesystem 100 of FIG. 1 according to an implementation. Although FIG. 4 isillustrated as a sequential, ordered listing of operations, it will beappreciated that some or all of the operations may occur in a differentorder, or in parallel, or iteratively, or may overlap in time.

An online course may be provided over a network to a plurality ofcomputing devices, the online course providing education content inwhich learners view and interact with the education content (402). Forexample, the online education platform 102 may provide an online course104 over a network to a plurality of computing devices 174, where theonline course 104 includes education content 136 (e.g., learner-createdcontent 136-1 and/or instructor-created content 136-2) in which learnersview and interact with the education content 136.

Learner-created content may be received over a network from a leanerapplication executing on one of the computing devices, thelearner-created content including one or more assessment questionsrelating to the online course (404). For example, the online educationplatform 102 may receive learner-created content 136-1 over the networkfrom the learner application 176 executing on the computing device 174.A learner may use the authoring tool 190 to create one or morelearner-created assessment questions for storage within the assessmentbank 132. In some examples, upon receiving the learner-created content136-1, the content manager 134 may convert the learner-created content136-1 from the first format 138 to the second format 142, as describedabove.

The learner-created content may be stored in an assessment bank thatstores a plurality of questions including learner-created assessmentquestions and instructor-created assessment questions (406). The onlineeducation platform 102 may store the learner-created content 136-1 inthe assessment bank 132. The assessment bank 132 may store a pluralityof questions (within a one-question at a time format), and thesequestions may include learner-created questions and instructor-createdquestions.

A subset of the questions from the assessment bank may be selected, andthe subset of the questions may be provided over the network to thelearner application (408). For example, the content selector 120 mayselect a subset of the questions for the assessment bank, and providethese questions over the network to the learner application 176 so thatthe learner can practice the online course material.

In the above description, numerous details are set forth. It will beapparent, however, to one of ordinary skill in the art having thebenefit of this disclosure, that implementations of the disclosure maybe practiced without these specific details. In some instances,well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form,rather than in detail, in order to avoid obscuring the description.

Some portions of the detailed description are presented in terms ofalgorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bitswithin a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are the means used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their workto others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here and generally,conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desiredresult. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physicalquantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take theform of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored,transferred, combined, compared and otherwise manipulated. It has provenconvenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to referto these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms,numbers, or the like.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise as apparent from the above discussion, itis appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizingterms such as “identifying,” “determining,” “calculating,” “updating,”“transmitting,” “receiving,” “generating,” “changing,” or the like,refer to the actions and processes of a computer system, or similarelectronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms datarepresented as physical (e.g., electronic) quantities within thecomputer system's registers and memories into other data similarlyrepresented as physical quantities within the computer system memoriesor registers or other such information storage, transmission or displaydevices.

Implementations of the disclosure also relate to an apparatus forperforming the operations herein. This apparatus may be speciallyconstructed for the required purposes, or it may comprise a generalpurpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computerprogram stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored ina non-transitory computer readable storage medium, such as, but notlimited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks,CD-ROMs and magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), randomaccess memories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards,flash memory, or any type of media suitable for storing electronicinstructions.

The words “example” or “exemplary” are used herein to mean serving as anexample, instance, or illustration. Any aspect or design describedherein as “example’ or “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed aspreferred or advantageous over other aspects or designs. Rather, use ofthe words “example” or “exemplary” is intended to present concepts in aconcrete fashion. As used in this application, the term “or” is intendedto mean an inclusive “or” rather than an exclusive “or”. That is, unlessspecified otherwise, or clear from context, “X includes A or B” isintended to mean any of the natural inclusive permutations. That is, ifX includes A; X includes B; or X includes both A and B, then “X includesA or B” is satisfied under any of the foregoing instances. In addition,the articles “a” and “an” as used in this application and the appendedclaims should generally be construed to mean “one or more” unlessspecified otherwise or clear from context to be directed to a singularform. Moreover, use of the term “an implementation” or “one embodiment”or “an implementation” or “one implementation” throughout is notintended to mean the same embodiment or implementation unless describedas such. Furthermore, the terms “first,” “second,” “third,” “fourth,”etc. as used herein are meant as labels to distinguish among differentelements and may not necessarily have an ordinal meaning according totheir numerical designation.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purposesystems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachingsherein, or it may prove convenient to construct a more specializedapparatus to perform the required method steps. The required structurefor a variety of these systems will appear from the description below.In addition, the present disclosure is not described with reference toany particular programming language. It will be appreciated that avariety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachingsof the disclosure as described herein.

The above description sets forth numerous specific details such asexamples of specific systems, components, methods and so forth, in orderto provide a good understanding of several implementations of thepresent disclosure. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art,however, that at least some implementations of the present disclosuremay be practiced without these specific details. In other instances,well-known components or methods are not described in detail or arepresented in simple block diagram format in order to avoid unnecessarilyobscuring the present disclosure. Thus, the specific details set forthabove are merely examples. Particular implementations may vary fromthese example details and still be contemplated to be within the scopeof the present disclosure.

It is to be understood that the above description is intended to beillustrative and not restrictive. Many other implementations will beapparent to those of skill in the art upon reading and understanding theabove description. The scope of the disclosure should, therefore, bedetermined with reference to the appended claims, along with the fullscope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: at least one processor; anon-transitory computer-readable medium configured to store executableinstructions that when executed by the at least one processor areconfigured to implement an online education platform configured toprovide an online course over a network to a plurality of computingdevices, the online course providing education content in which learnersview and interact with the education content, the online educationplatform including: a content manager configured to provide an authoringtool on a computing device associated with an learner of the onlinecourse, the authoring tool configured to add material to the educationcontent, the authoring tool configured to provide at least one userinterface for creation of a learner-created question for an assessmentfor the online course, the content manager including an educationcontent converter configured to receive the learner-created question ina first format and convert the first format to a second formatcompatible to the online education platform; an assessment bankconfigured to store the learner-created question, the assessment bankincluding learner-created questions and instructor-created questions;and a content selector configured to select a plurality of questionsfrom the assessment bank for the assessment for the online course. 2.The system of claim 1, wherein the learner-created question is stored ina one-question format.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the contentselector is configured to sort the learner-created questions and theinstructor-created questions in the assessment back according toquality, and select the plurality of questions based on the sorted list.4. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one user interfaceprovided by the authoring tool identifies at least one text box fordescribing the learner-created question and one or more text boxes forproviding one or more answers to the learner-created question.
 5. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the first format is a hypertext markuplanguage (HTML) format.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the secondformat is an education markup language (EML) format.
 7. The system ofclaim 6, wherein the EML format defines a plurality of blocks usingextensible markup language (XML), each of the plurality of blockscorresponding to a different type of data content.
 8. The system ofclaim 7, wherein the XML defines each block of the plurality of blockswith restricted attributes that limits a block to a particular type ofdata content.
 9. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storingexecutable instructions that when executed by at least one processor areconfigured to implement an online education platform, the onlineeducation platform configured to provide an online course over a networkto a plurality of computing devices, the online course providingeducation content in which learners view and interact with the educationcontent, the online education platform configured to: provide anauthoring tool on a computing device associated with an learner of theonline course, the authoring tool configured to add material to theeducation content, the authoring tool configured to provide at least oneuser interface for creation of a learner-created question for anassessment for the online course; convert the learner-created questionfrom a first format to a second format compatible to the onlineeducation platform; store the learner-created question in an assessmentbank, the assessment bank including learner-created questions andinstructor-created questions; and select a plurality of questions fromthe assessment bank for the assessment for the online course.
 10. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein thelearner-created question is stored in a one-question format.
 11. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, further comprising:sort the learner-created questions and the instructor-created questionsin the assessment back according to quality; and select the plurality ofquestions based on the sorted list.
 12. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the at least one userinterface provided by the authoring tool identifies at least one textbox for describing the learner-created question and one or more textboxes for providing one or more answers to the learner-created question.13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, furthercomprising: provide an authoring tool on a computing device associatedwith an instructor of the online course, the authoring tool configuredto provide at least one user interface for development of aninstructor-related question, convert the instructor-related questionfrom the first format to the second format compatible to the onlineeducation platform; and store the instructor-related question in theassessment bank.
 14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ofclaim 9, wherein the first format is a hypertext markup language (HTML)format.
 15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9,wherein the second format is an education markup language (EML) format.16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein theEML format defines a plurality of blocks using extensible markuplanguage (XML), each of the plurality of blocks corresponding to adifferent type of data content.
 17. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 16, wherein the XML defines each block of the pluralityof blocks with restricted attributes that limits a block to a particulartype of data content.
 18. A method for implementing an online educationplatform that provides an online course over a network to a plurality ofcomputing devices in which learners view and interact with educationcontent of the online course, the method comprising: providing anauthoring tool on a computing device associated with an learner of theonline course, the authoring tool configured to add material to theeducation content, the authoring tool configured to provide at least oneuser interface for creation of a learner-created question for anassessment for the online course; converting the learner-createdquestion from a first format to a second format compatible to the onlineeducation platform; storing the learner-created question in anassessment bank, the assessment bank including learner-created questionsand instructor-created questions; and selecting a plurality of questionsfrom the assessment bank for the assessment for the online course. 19.The method of claim 18, wherein the learner-created question is storedin a one-question format.
 20. The method of claim 18, furthercomprising: sorting the learner-created questions and theinstructor-created questions in the assessment back according toquality; and selecting the plurality of questions based on the sortedlist.